


In My Time of Living

by BarefootGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s02e01 In My Time of Dying, Gen, John Winchester's B+ Parenting, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:29:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Winchester isn't the best father in the world.  But never think he doesn't love his sons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Time of Living

_There's a chapter on fathers a chapter on sons /_ _There are pages of conflicts that nobody won..._ _(Sting, “The Book of my Life”)_

 ------------------------------

The only noise was the slow, steady beeping of the machine, and the white noise of the hospital going about its business outside the door. The rest of the world has always passed them by, frozen in amber, tangled by fate, destiny, some crap he would have laughed at when he was twenty and full of himself, and knew what the world was all about.

His son is dying.

He’s known, of course. He’s always known. John Winchester was occasionally clueless, often drowned in grief, always obsessed with revenge, and yeah, maybe a little too caught up in his own drama, but he’d never been stupid. He’d known Sammy was leaving long before he left, had known that Dean tried too hard to be daddy’s good soldier, under the reckless good-time facade.

He’d known he’d damaged them.

He’d just never known how deep that damage had run.

 

_He’d be furious._

_What?_

_That I wasted a bullet. He wouldn’t be proud of me, he’d tear me a new one._

The horrible thing was that Dean had been right. He would have been furious. He would have torn a strip off Dean’s hide, the same way he’d yelled at Sammy to shoot him, to destroy the yellow-eyed bastard inside him.

He’d demanded that Sam – his youngest son, his baby - kill his father in cold blood. And he would have left them both with that guilt, while he – finally – escaped all pain.

John Winchester, professional bastard.

Mary would be ashamed of him. Ashamed, and furious. And now, he sits here listening to his oldest son slowly dying, and he can’t think of a thing he would have done differently.

_“Your son is dying and you’re worried about the Colt?”_

The sting had been sharp under his skin. Sam assumed the worst of him, always. And he couldn’t blame him. So many secrets, so much avoidance, there had been a wall up between them Sam’s entire life. He’d pushed him away, kept him at arm’s length, let Sam think that was okay, that was all he deserved. From good intentions, from fear…mostly, he admits now, from fear. What had been, what would be, what he couldn’t let himself face, full-on.

And Dean…. The little boy he’d been, full of laughter and grabby hands, always so eager to hug, to trust. There’d been too many burdens placed on Dean, too many expectations, and his oldest had never broken, never bucked. Never failed him. Had known, at the end, in the cabin, that something was wrong.

Because the demon in his father's skin had praised him.

There’s a sick feeling in his gut, a familiar acid churn. He’s aware that Sam is close to hating him. Aware that Sam really believes that John doesn’t love them…and that Dean thinks his father has always been disappointed in him. They believe that because he gave them every reason to. And he’d done it deliberately.

Another hunt, another order, another excuse not to man up, just because he didn’t know how. He’d relied on Mary to teach him. But with Mary gone, it had all fallen apart.

“You need to be stronger than me, boy,” he says, his voice softer than the ventilator breathing for Dean. “You need to do what I couldn’t. You need to be what I wasn’t.”

But his son was dying. The boy had done everything he’d ever asked, given everything he’d had, and for what? A man shouldn’t see his children die. And Sammy… losing the brother he loves will drive him over the edge, so far past the point of no return it won’t even be in his rear view mirror.

He needs the Colt. His fingers clench as though the cold steel was already in his grip, the deadly potential giving him strength. It can kill Yellow-eye. It can end this.

He's selfish, in the end. But it's the only way he can make this right.

“Hang in there son,” he says, his voice softer than the ventilator breathing for Dean. “Just a little while longer.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> Because as much as I really want to hate John, I can't.
> 
>  
> 
> (beta-read by the ever-amazing fireun and obsessionisaperfume)


End file.
